Give the teachers guns – America’s story

 

The newsreader’s headline was “President Trump has suggested America should give the teachers guns to combat the rise in school shootings”

I yowled, threw up my hands in horror and turned off the radio.

Possibly not the best choice, considering I was driving at the time!!

Nevertheless she (the newsreader and whoever wrote the headline) got the response they wanted – despair, disbelief, anger no, fury, more despair, disbelief, refusal.

Push adrenalin, and we have your attention,

seems to be the common belief.

Um, no, you just lost a listener.

And now you can’t deliver me any more ads.

But that’s not the story I feel compelled to write about all this.

 

I want to tell a story about America.

 

It’s a long story and it begins with the brave, resourceful frontiersmen and women, and the struggle they won.

The part of the story that I want to highlight right now, though, is from my own time here on earth.

 

America, great country that she is, and conscious of the role she has taken on as leader of the free world,

felt the seeds planted,

in her shadows

in the frontier days,

starting to grow.

 

In an effort to turn her growth in a new direction she became involved in the Vietnam War.

It was part of the direction she knew would be unhealthy, but this time, she set up an understanding amongst her people of just what was happening.  They responded with a huge movement for change. It was a beginning.

 

The unhealthy growth continued alongside the suspicion and desire for change and a new direction.

 

She felt the need to turn further towards the growth she knew she needed, and chose to send selected people to target schools,

knowing that

while watching their young men die for little perceivable gain had been a catalyst in the past,

it hadn’t been enough.

 

Now it was time to push a lever that brought way stronger emotional response – the children – in school.

Emotional response drives change.

She understands that at so many levels.

 

If you are reading signs like this one

then you know the response, and the emotion generated.

 

America you gave the world Donald Trump for a reason.

 

America, grand lady, your journey continues and we all in the free world,

and in wherever the unfree world is too,

support you in your struggles.  We all will be better for the understandings.